I grew up in a ramenless wasteland. The closest decent ramen shop was at least a hundred miles away, so my only experience with the dish until adulthood was of the instant noodle variety. It wasn’t until college, when I had access to ramen shops, that I fell in love with alkaline noodles and jammy ajitsuke tamago (the jammy boiled eggs served in ramen). A steaming bowl of ramen was my go-to celebratory meal, but I never considered that I could make it at home. I figured it required special equipment, hours of preparation, and professional chef–level skills to prepare. I, like most people, assumed ramen belonged on restaurant menus, not in home kitchens. This was until I found former Serious Eats editor Sho Spaeth’s miso tori paitan recipe (creamy chicken broth ramen). It completely changed how I think about ramen—and about cooking in general.
The Recipe That Changed My Mind About Homemade Ramen
When I first came across former Sho’s miso tori paitan ramen recipe, I was intimidated by the length of the ingredients list. But, digging into the recipe was surprisingly approachable. The pictures of each step, along with the exact weight measurements, made it nearly impossible to make a mistake. Even with no prior ramen-making experience, the first time I prepared this recipe at home was the best bowl of ramen I had ever eaten. The base of the soup is umami-heavy, thanks to the combination of leeks, onions, garlic, and kombu used to make the broth. The savoriness is amplified even further with miso and shoyu tare. Then, the dish is topped with tender pork belly, diced white onion, thinly sliced scallions, and a spritz of lime to cut through the richness.
What Makes This Ramen Recipe Home-Cook Friendly
Making ramen at home has a reputation for being an all-day, sink-overflowing-with-dishes project that only professionals can pull off. That’s why I love how this recipe breaks the process into manageable parts. Splitting the soup’s components into steps that can be prepared days in advance makes it manageable at home. Instead of spending a full day in the kitchen, you can take your time and make the pieces here and there throughout the week. The recipe also calls for producing more than you need, so your efforts go towards the preparation of future ramen bowls.
The pieces of the recipe build on one another, making the process easy to follow and using each ingredient’s byproduct to its fullest potential. For example, instead of tossing the skimmed fat from the broth, it’s infused with garlic, ginger, and lemon to make an aromatic oil. I love drizzling any leftover oil drizzled over fried rice or pasta.
The recipe is also designed to squeeze the most out of the chicken and vegetables used in the broth. It’s a two-step process that involves first making a traditional broth with the chicken and vegetables, then cooking them again until the bones are soft enough to break up with an immersion blender. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know that was possible, but it’s a great technique to extract every ounce of flavor and gelatin from the bones.
Lessons That Go Beyond One Bowl
This recipe doesn’t just teach you how to make miso tori paitan ramen, it teaches you the fundamentals of putting together any bowl of ramen. You also familiarize yourself with the flavor of each element, which isn’t possible to do in a restaurant where the dish is already assembled. I’ve also carried over lessons from this recipe when crafting other chicken broths or noodle bowls. Sho continues to craft amazing ramen recipes. I tested a few of them for his upcoming ramen cookbook, which comes out in October. Making ramen is always going to be a big undertaking, but for me, dedicating the time and fridge space is always worth it for a superb bowl of noodles.
